1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to luggage and in particular, to suitcases having attached wheels and a handle for pulling.
2. Background
U.S. Pat. No. 6,148,971, “Easily Pullable Suitcase” by the present inventor Dick T. Kho, issued on Nov. 21, 2000. The patent described a soft-sided suitcase and a hard-sided suitcase that can be towed, using an attached pivoted pulling handle, on four wheels which consist of two main wheels and two forward located caster wheels, or towed on the main wheels alone. Provision is made for the pulling handle to be fixed rigidly at a small upward angle to ease towing on the main wheels. This requires the front end of the suitcase to be lifted while towing and would reduce ground clearance at the back end of the suitcase. To avoid this possible problem particularly on uneven ground, the bottom wall of the rear half of the suitcase side was raised at an angle of about 17 degrees with the plane of the front half bottom wall. This resulted in the location of the main wheels being moved to a new gravity center that was now forward from the normal center half-way point. In addition, it meant that the suitcase front end was now longer than the back end.
The above patented suitcase configuration has done reasonably well in acceptance by travelers, and can indeed be towed easily on all four wheels or on two main wheels. However, some ongoing low priority problems requiring a solution and improvement were brought to the attention of the inventor by manufacturers and others.
First, due to the non-symmetrical shape of the suitcase base, for a soft-sided suitcase, the suitcase frame also had to be specially made non-symmetrical to fit the base, and resulted in extra cost. It also severely restricted the suitcase style shape to that described in the patent.
For a hard-sided suitcase, the required placement of the main wheels and the angled back portion, resulted in awkward hinging of the suitcase cover, and restricting the suitcase shape and style. A base design that was approximately symmetrical and met the required ground clearance requirements for pulling on two main wheels or on all the wheels, would then be welcomed, particularly by manufacturers.
Second, users found that sometimes, the pulling handle did not store securely in the guide plate on the suitcase. Also, deployment of the pulling handle to a fixed handle position often took significant time to complete. A more secure pulling handle storage and a quick release from storage would be appreciated.
There is thus, a need for an improved suitcase base that would meet the requirement for easy towing suitcase while permitting variation in suitcase design, and an improved pulling handle that gives a traveler greater ease of use.